flicked his finger I irritably and the whole scene changed.
He was back at the forest of Govi-Altai. “What are you doing? It is your duty to answer my
question after I have succeeded in summoning you! Why have you sent me back here?” Bataar
shouted, looking around the empty forest and shouting at the familiar darkness and the trees.
“Oh, but I am answering your question. But just in my own unique way! Just wait and see,
Altan Bataar, wait and see…” the spirit’s voice echoed around the tress then slowly trailed off
mysteriously. At his last words, a musk deer leaped out of the forest and then stopped abruptly,
regarding him warily. His hands immediately flew to the bow and arrow slung over his shoulder
and with lightning quick agility, he had snuggled a arrow into the nocking point and aimed it
straight at the deer’s head.
The musk deer narrowed its eyes, unflinching at the sight of the arrow. “I’ve heard of you.” It
said, “We deer have many names for you. We call you: The One With No Heart, He Who Kills With
No Remorse and The Bloodthirsty Hunter. Now that I actually have met you in person, I see that
it is all true. I have a family waiting for me to come back home, though now that is just a wishful
thought. I have a beautiful wife and three wonderful children and one child of mine is sick, but I
will never see him again. But why do you care? You hunt the weak and I am just proving to you
that I am weaker than the smallest mouse.”
Bataar hesitated, and then slowly lowered his bow. He frowned. What was happening? Why
had he not shot it at the first chance he had got? His eyes widened as he realized he had just
felt… compassion.
The musk deer nodded satisfactorily. “You lowered your bow. Why? Because you felt pity for
the deer. You put yourself in his shoes and related his problems to your own life. You have always
had compassion in you, you have just never mindfully thought about your feelings.” The spirit of
Gobi Desert’s voice echoed out of the musk deer’s mouth. He smiled at Bataar once, and then he
vanished into thin air. “Isn’t it twice as good that you can now touch others not only with your
arrows, but with your heart too?” the spirit’s murmured in his ear.
